In a communication system, the transmitter has clock circuitry that controls the speed at which data is transferred via a communications medium. The receiver also has clock circuitry that controls the speed at which the data that is received from the communications medium is processed. Ideally, the receiver's clock and the transmitter's clock will operate at exactly the same frequency and will be appropriately aligned in phase. The transmitter's clock and the receiver's clock, however, are typically close but not identical in frequency, resulting in frequency mismatch.
Receivers in many digital communication systems recover the clock signal directly from the incoming data sequence, typically using a phase-locked loop (PLL) circuit. In such an implementation, the PLL circuits generate a local clock signal that is phase aligned with the incoming reference signal. The phase aligned local clock signal facilitates the receipt and processing of synchronous data sent by a transmitter in the communication system.
Typically, conventional PLL circuits include a phase detector, a filter and a voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO). In the conventional PLL circuit, the phase detector compares the incoming reference signal (DATA) and the output of the VCO. The phase detector generates an error signal that is representative of the phase difference of the reference signal and the VCO output. The error signal is filtered and applied to the control input of the VCO to produce an output signal that tracks the phase of the reference signal.
Many clock recovery circuits operate in a continuous mode, where the transmitter and receiver continuously operate and monitor communication ports for arriving data. Such continuous operation, however, requires a significant amount of power, which is particularly problematic for battery-powered receivers, such as those deployed in wireless or optical communication systems. Thus, it is desirable to conserve power in such receivers by operating only when there is data to be processed. Thus, a number of clock recovery circuits have been proposed or suggested that operate in a burst mode to quickly adjust to phase changes in data coming from the communications medium. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,757,872, entitled “Clock Recovery Circuit,” assigned to the assignee of the present invention, and incorporated by reference herein.
In addition to providing improved power consumption characteristics, such burst mode clock recovery circuits also do not require a long string of binary transitions to generate a clock signal that has the same frequency and appropriate phase alignment with the incoming data. While such burst mode clock recovery circuits exhibit improved performance relative to continuous mode clock recovery circuits, they suffer from a number of limitations, which, if overcome, could expand the utility and efficiency of burst mode clock recovery circuits. For example, most burst mode clock recovery circuits exhibit mismatch between the oscillators, thereby causing a frequency offset. A need therefore exists for a method and apparatus for recovering a clock signal from an incoming reference signal that has matched oscillators without a frequency offset.